1890 King of Southeast Asia

At 3 pm on May 1st, the Japanese Combined Fleet was organizing warships to salvage people and materials.

In a short period of 4 hours, the Combined Fleet sank 12 warships, including 4 large warships that could be used as absolute main forces in second-rate naval countries. The loss was not small.

During the entire battle, the Japanese did not cause substantial damage to the Java battleship formation, which had only one main battleship, including Torpedo Team 5.

This made the Japanese morale extremely low, especially when salvaging the drowned, they would see many wounded and floating limbs and arms, and sharks that smelled the blood were feasting.

Seeing the miserable end of their companions, many students who had not yet graduated and filled in from the Naval University were even scared.

Just as the Japanese were salvaging the remaining materials, they did not notice that the Java, which had finished replenishing at sea, was back at the edge of the distant skyline.

The Japanese Navy did not make a low-level mistake this time. The thick-skinned main battleships came up at the first time and pressed towards the Java.

The Japanese intention was to drive away the Java battleship, which could attack out of range, or to carry the Java's artillery fire into their own range.

As long as they entered the range of the Japanese Navy, the Japanese Navy Combined Fleet could still defeat the Java with its advantage in the number of main battleships.

Of course, the Japanese did not hold out hope. After all, no one was so stupid as to wait for the enemy to attack without playing to their advantage.

This was also the case. Seeing that several Japanese battleships were pressing up, Xu Sunming chose to fight a few rounds and run away.

Because of the hasty action, only one shell hit the side of the Ise, killing only a few sailors, and then retreated.

After that, Xu Sunming broke and smashed, rushing up from time to time to fire a few shots, until the Japanese Navy battleships approached before leaving.

The Japanese only had destroyers to keep up with the pace of the Java battleship, but ordinary destroyers could not survive under the medium-caliber guns of the Java battleship battle formation.

Therefore, the Japanese could only send out battle fleets tirelessly, forcing the Java Island away and then retreating, back and forth.

"Damn it! If this continues, we will fail sooner or later..." Yamamoto looked at the many warships of the Combined Fleet with sadness.

"Yes, we don't carry much fuel, and it is not enough to support frequent battles." Kato looked angry.

He thought about dying on the battlefield, but he didn't think about losing the battle by running out of fuel.

Although the Japanese Combined Fleet was extremely short of fuel, there was still some coal because it was mined locally. With the supplies squeezed out by Terauchi, it was theoretically enough to carry out this northbound mission.

However, this refers to the case of only a short battle, and it is calculated based on the consumption of oil-coal mixed boilers.

But in actual implementation, the consumption of coal will increase by an order of magnitude when the fuel is exhausted.

Because in the oil-coal mixed boiler, the biggest role of fuel is not to provide heat, but to quickly ignite coal. In fact, the main power source is still coal, but the utilization rate of coal has been improved.

Due to the lack of fuel, in order to obtain the same power, the battleship needs to consume more coal, and in order to force the Java Island away in time, the battleship has to maintain the boiler pressure for a long time, and the coal consumption of the Japanese army is much higher than expected.

As mentioned in the previous article, the power difference between maintaining economic speed and maintaining combat cruising speed is extremely large, and the speed and power of warships are increasing.

After exceeding the economic speed, the power required will increase by 10% for every increase in speed by 1 knot.

For example, the battleship Ise, when fully loaded with 5,000 tons of fuel (coal and fuel), has a cruising range of 8,000 nautical miles at 14 knots, but the speed is only 14 knots.

When maintaining a speed of more than 20 knots, the cruising range will be shortened by more than half, and because the fuel is about to run out, the speed cannot be maintained at the maximum speed of 5 knots.

After a day of fighting, the Japanese Combined Fleet has already encountered fuel problems, and many warships that have not been fully replenished have reached the 50% warning line for fuel.

It can be said that the action of the Java Island has made this huge fleet lose the opportunity to complete the mission.

"The commander has sent a telegram to Sasebo. Unfortunately, the fire in Tokyo damaged the equipment of the military headquarters. Otherwise, we could contact the military headquarters directly and refuel at the northern port." Kato was still concerned about the mission.

The entire Japanese Navy Combined Fleet really regarded opening up the traffic line to the north as its biggest task to complete, including the fleet commander.

Otherwise, the Combined Fleet would not have made such a big detour just to make a feint and avoid the Chinese Navy.

Unfortunately, things did not go as planned. Swimming in the sea is never as fast as flying in the sky. The weather has been good these two days, and the airship has a good view. The Japanese Navy was monitored throughout the process.

"The situation in the mainland is not optimistic. Due to the shortage of materials, the mining of many mines has to be delayed, and the amount of coal is getting less and less. The Prime Minister can squeeze out a batch of coal, which is beyond my expectation." Yamamoto shook his head 7x8, indicating that this matter may not be sure.

Indeed, Japan can squeeze out several thousand tons of coal now, but the first batch of coal is definitely not concentrated, but squeezed out from various factories and mines, and transportation is very troublesome and slow.

Second, the last batch of 10,000 tons was supplies to the Combined Fleet, which already had a certain amount of fuel. Now, let alone the fuel has been loaded on the ship, even if it has not been loaded, they are not sailing towards Sasebo.

Thousands of 10,000 tons can only be filled with the coal cabin of two battleships. Even if it is packed for destroyers, one destroyer is equipped with hundreds of tons of coal, which is the amount of more than two or two ten destroyers.

For a large fleet with 67 or ten warships, 10,000 tons of coal cannot be stimulated.

And more coal? Even if the fuel of other industries first moves, there is not enough time to ship to the port in the north, and there is no enough loading ability to transport the port in the north.

If so, wait for the coal, the Huaxia Navy has already reacted and surrounded them.

I don't know how many times this kind of thing has happened today. Anyway, the Chinese people only need to delay and do not need to fight.

At night, because there was no moonlight at the beginning of the month, one piece was dark on the sea, and the Japanese fleet performed light control. There was no other lights except the dark signs of light.

In this case, Java Island has no way to take this fleet at all, and can only stop and rest.

The United Fleet also got a chance to breathe, and one was repairing trauma.

Yamamoto's 5th stood on the mast of the battleship, blowing cold wind, watching the stars.

There is no cloud color, the stars are particularly beautiful, and they are particularly beautiful, but his mood is not very beautiful.

Because this weather represents the next few hours or even days, it is a sunny day.

"On a sunny day, we couldn't get rid of the investigation of the airship at all." Yamamoto 7 multiplied at the northwest, a few "stars" with 1 flash and 1 flash.

Yamamoto 7 multiply 8 knows that it is not a star at all, but the investigation airship of the Chinese people.

During the day, these airships are far away, and the Japanese can be visible, but they can't help them. They can't help them.

At night, when the lighting control was maintained, the fleet was unable to get rid of the huge vision of the airship.

If this goes on, failure seems destined.

"I heard that Europe has used aircraft to carry machine guns to solve the airship, and it has succeeded many times. Unfortunately, the empire's aircraft could not fly as high as the airship, and the co -fleet's water aircraft did not even have machine guns, and could not threaten the airship."

"If this goes on, we will be consumed by the Chinese people alive. I think it fails and killed, but I have never thought that it is a way to die like this."

Yamamoto 7 multiplied 8 and murmured to himself.

"These despicable Huaxia ..." Kato was talking.

BOOM!

On the periphery of the fleet, the light of the 1st group accompanied by a huge sound. With a good vision on the mast, Yamamoto 7 multiply 8 saw a water column rising.

"Torpedo attacks! It is a torpedo attack! Submarine! Kato, notify the captain, the submarine of the Chinese people is approaching! It must be dispersed immediately!" Yamamoto 7 took the 1st time to guess what weapon attack them.

"Ha Yi! Despicable Chinese people dare not dare to confront us ..." Kato ran a curse on one side and scolded.

Yamamoto 7 Cheng 8 didn't listen to what he was talking about, but just looked at the formation of the United Fleet.

The United Fleet set up four columns to arrange formation in a standard night.

"It's too close, it's too close ..." Yamamoto 7 multiplied 8 and murmured to himself.

Because of the progress, the warship did not open the torpedo net. In order to avoid falling behind at night, the warships arranged densely, and the distance between each other was only two chains and 3 chains.

The chain is an British -made unit, 1 tenth of nautical miles, which is 2 meters, which is often used to measure the distance between warships.

Because the strong British navy has occupied hundreds of years of sea power, the British Navy's institutional standards have spread to the world, and the chain is one of them.

Japan has once again exerted its characteristics.

Obviously had lost the submarine, but still did not care about the power of the submarine, thinking that it was a defensive weapon.

The Japanese Navy, inherited the British, emphasized the spirit of offensive, and promoted the spirit of Nelson to fight against the enemy.

The combination of this spirit with the spirit of the traditional Japanese samurai has exerted an extraordinary chemical response.

The specific manifestation is that the Japanese Navy is very iron.

Whether it is tactical or strategic, it is 1 way to go to the end.

Just as the 2 War did not realize that when the role of the aircraft carrier emphasized the emphasis on the battleship, the limited resources were given to the battleship.

After realizing that, the aircraft carrier emphasized that even if the change has been built to one and a half or more battleships, it is at the expense.

However, the strategy did not turn around and did not notice the pilot's factor, which caused the combat effectiveness after the U -turn.

It is also the same now. After the Japanese fleet encountered a submarine attack, they were at a loss because they were not familiar with the submarine and did not know how to counter it.

Pass!

The probe light was turned on and searched on the sea.

"No! Quickly turn off the lights!" Yamamoto looked at the bright probe lamp, and looked at the dense team 5, shouting miserable.

Unfortunately, it was too late, and he was just an intern and had no rights.

A few minutes later, Yamamoto watched a few white trails approaching, and a protective cruiser bravely hit the knife to the battleship ...